Every culture has superstitions – lucky charms and objects tend
to be the most common manifestations.
Four-leaf clovers, rabbit’s feet, and horseshoes are popular in
American culture. Why do they symbolize
luck? Why do we still buy or collect these things and hope that we get
lucky some day? The answer is
simple: no matter how our lives are dominated by the logic of efficiency
and multi-national capitalism, we
still like to believe that there are things that are not governed by
them. We call it luck, fortune or miracle.
Whether we admit it or not, most of us are superstitious to some degree.
So why not bring lucky charms
from around the world together, and see if we get any luckier?

Various “lucky” objects are arranged in a diptych of Mandala-like
layouts. You may find some objects
familiar to you and some not, since they are gathered from superstitions
from all over the world. As the
viewer, you would start looking at this piece by identifying objects
you might easily associate with luck – a
wishbone, a penny on the ground, four-leaf clovers. Then you move onto
other objects that you have seen
before, but are unsure about the meaning – ceramic cats, bamboo,
or a human-like elephant. As you
deduce the general significance of the various items, you may ponder
the specifics of the more esoteric
objects, such as the pig’s head.

Among all the different Mandalas I researched, I adopted
the “Ryobu-Mandala” specific
to “Esoteric
Buddhism” in China and Japan. Unlike the grid format that I have
worked with in past projects, this type
of Mandala pattern does not imply linear narratives, but cohesively encloses
and encapsulates multithreaded
meta-narratives in which one can immerse him/herself in anywhere within
the visual. The
ethnocentric superstitions attached to these various material objects
become part of a metaphysical yet silly
concept: “universal luck” in the visual realm.